


No Mans Land

by caffeinatedmusing



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Witcher Yule 2017, warfare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 21:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13132998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeinatedmusing/pseuds/caffeinatedmusing
Summary: Fill for a prompt asking for something of Milva's time in Brokilon. Hope this suits. Happy holidays!





	No Mans Land

Smoke. 

It always reeked of smoke now. Even the river, murky and swirling with blackened bits of debris, a filmy coating of ash, and the occasional corpse, stank of it. Once a lush floodplain, now a charnel house of stumps, dead plants, ash, and ruin. 

Flickering light rose from the latest round of fires, soldiers and mercenaries shouting and laughing over the roar of the flames as they passed the torches along. Yet another swath of verdant forest was laid waste.

A dead horse decomposed in the current, bones showing through the tatters of rotted skin. Most of the stink had dissipated, but not all. 

Milva covered her nose with her sleeve as she crouched, ankle deep in muck, by the corpse. The fire light cast long flickering shadows over the riverbank. Accidental but perfect cover. 

She whistled, a low mournful series. Any hunter or scout worth the cost of the boots they wore would have known that birds, any wildlife really, would be rare in this warzone. Fortunately, the men set on deforestry, rape, and ruin, knew fuck all about the natural state of the land they were so busy despoiling. A while later, an answer came across, almost lost beneath the noise of the water, the encampment and the fire, and the boozy jeering of bored soldiers.

She turned and motioned to the three people hiding in a hollowed out space; all that remained of the stump of what had once been a grand centuries old oak. Crouched low, they came quickly, scuttling down the bank, slipping in the mud.

Faces and hands smeared with the foul muck, they worked quickly to loosen the raft from it’s hiding place, disguised as deadwood where the bank was undercut. 

Milva kept one eye on the fires, in case they were spotted. This was the worst part. Getting across the river. Time was, she had known it well enough. A great area to hunt; whole herds of animals had stopped to drink the clear flowing water. But now the swirling current hid the broken limbs of felled trees, pieces of artillery, sharp broken rusty things. And the dead. At last crossing, she’d gotten her group over only to lose two to infections picked up from the filthy water. 

Of the three she guided tonight, two were injured. The woman was limping, knee swollen and dark where the joint had wrenched; the result of having a horse shot from under her. She was lucky not to have been crushed outright, much less still on her feet. A hasty, tight binding kept her mobile. Of the two men, the young half elf had burns up one arm and over onto his back and shoulder. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen, eyes haunted with too many things. He was the one Milva worried about. He was tense, trying not to shiver as evening fell chill around them. 

Then there was the elf, the elder; exhausted, bruised, and hungry. But they all were that. Scoia'tael, but with the furtive hunted look of a deserter. Anger tightened the lines of his mouth, making him look older. She reckoned it was fueling him through. He’d make it to the other side. She expected he’d ask for a village and not a commando’s camp when it came time to leave. Not her business, anyway.

Nothing to remedy any of it but try and find the shortest way through. Same as always.

They crossed the river, stretched on their bellies on the rickety raft. Her spine itched with the imagined volley of arrows that never came. Paddles were put to cautious use to guide them, unhook them from snags, but mostly it was a case of letting the current take them. They passed under the watchful eyes of a sentry, only so much driftwood.

As soon as the raft ran a ground, they rolled off, hid it as well as they could. Keeping low, they made a slow, snakes- crawling progress towards the tree line. 

Milva’s contact met them in a small clearing with a meager resupply; stale bread, a small burlap sack of tart worm eaten apples, a skin of water, and most importantly, more arrows. Coins past hands. They didn’t speak much other than to exchange updated information about the routes in low whispers. A curt nod of thanks, and they were on their separate ways again.

Deeper into the trees and smoke cleared; revealing a blue starry sky of twilight before it thickened into a sepulchral darkness laced between blacker branches further into the forest. Footsteps fell on soft eons old layers of loam. The reek of war and death faded, replaced by leafmould, earth, and sap. The scent of green things. 

Milva’s shoulders eased, her steps lightened. They were by no means out of danger but here, she felt cleaner. Surer. Here, she knew what was what.

They wandered seemingly random paths, stopping to rest during the daylight hours beneath a rocky outcropping. 

Sun light filtered, clear and green, through the canopy. Milva kept watch and listened to the forest noises. Birds, squirrels chattering and chasing one another through the branches. Leaves and acorns dropping. A deer wandered past. Solitary. It paused to graze; a perfect shot. She ground her teeth and let it go by. They lit no fires and could not spare the time to dress a kill, in any case. It would be a waste. And an offense against their dryad hosts. 

She woke her charges just as the birds began singing for the sunset in earnest. The young half elf was feverish now, burns oozing and eyes glassy. Aglais would be able to heal it, if only they could get him there in time. 

Surefooted and quick, she picked up the trail again, moving them closer to the heart of the forest. By noon, the elf was carrying the younger one on his back; their pace slowed considerably. The woman leaned on a makeshift crutch; a branch they had picked up off the ground, storm dropped and still green enough to bear weight. 

They hiked over boulders, fallen logs covered in moss and last years leaves, around thickets of underbrush stretching greedy limbs towards the light opened by a fallen giant of a maple. The trees got older, bigger, taller, ecologies unto themselves. They passed a small hillock, stones ringing around; a grave mound for those who had not survived. Small saplings had been planted over it; the dryads marked things in their own way.

Somehow, stumbling, one step and then another, they made it. 

Brokilon.

Her charges were herded off to the healers. She made her report to Eithné and then it was off to sit and eat, and to wash up. 

Later, after a brisk bath in cold stream water, she sat plaiting her hair, listening to the music of the brook, the soft lyrical voices of the dryads going about their lives all around her. Small, simple things. 

Darkness was falling again. 

Tomorrow, just after dawn, she would take to the trails again; leading whichever group was ready to go back out through the forest paths. Some would rejoin their respective military groups. Others would head for the small villages and then parts beyond. They never knew each other’s names. They never knew each other’s stories. And it was all the same, wasn’t it? Outside, the world burned, men went mad with violence, lives were destroyed. Forests could, did burn. Here, none of that mattered.

Brokilon, ancient, timeless, rested at the heart of it all, the eye of a storm, and remained untouched. Unchanged. Even as all these war-ruined lives streamed through it, like so much flotsam down the river, to lodge wherever they landed. The dryads lived now just the same as they had before this war of men had broken out. The same as they would when this war ended. They guarded their borders as they always had. Their calm indifference held this surreal realm together. A place to breathe, to rest, to wait patiently. That part, her hunters heart understood.

Milva finished her braid and tied off the end with a bit of cloth twisted with sinew. In this quiet darkness, this sense of held breathe and waiting, she had the tendency to think too much about things better left alone. Was she the hunter or the held breath? The arrow? Prey or a pawn? 

Why had Eithné asked this of her? 

There were others who could have done the same. Maybe more. Possibly less. 

One person could not make a difference in this. Milva was no naïve fool, to think she was saving lives here. These elves she led, they took their time to heal and then went right back out to their deaths. Did any of it matter in the end? She sighed, stood and stretched, muscles fatigued from tension pulling and then easing some. She moved to pack up her scant belongings, checked her bow and quiver, ready to head out come the morning. 

This night, at least, she could sleep without fear. Maybe that was enough.

It would have to be enough.


End file.
